FLASHBACK
Martin sat on his bed, both of his hands shaking rapidly as he twisted off the cap to the bottle of pills he was holding. 'Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance. What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?' What will your contribution be? Without contribution is without significance, how will history remember you? without significance, what will your contribution be, without significance, without significance. The words that Mr. Hundert had spoken only a few months ago echoed in his head, scrambled all around, repeating over, and over again. "Without significance," Martin echoed a loud to himself. "I have nothing to contribute, NOTHING! History won't remember me!" Martin spoke aloud, his voice raised to just below a yell; there was no one to hear him, everyone was outside enjoying the sun, enjoying sports. He poured about a dozen of the pills in to his hand, and looked at them for a second, his body still shaking violently. He picked up the glass of water that was sitting on the floor at his feet, then tossed the pills in to his mouth, washing them down with almost the entire contents of the glass. For a minute, he felt no different, then he felt nothing at all.
FLASHBACK ENDS
Martin thought back on the event a year later. He had never been able to explain to anyone what had made him do it, not even Louis Masoudi, his best friend, and the person that had found him in time to get him to the hospital, the person who saved his life. Until now, Martin wasn't even sure that he knew why he had done it. "Are you alright Marty?" Louis tapped him on the shoulder, they had been eating lunch, and Martin had let a vacant expression slip over his face.
"What? Yeah, I'm fine, just thinking." Martin looked over at his friend.
"About?"
"I think you know…" Martin trailed off, it was almost the only thing that he thought about other then school, he couldn't let the memory go.
"Oh," Louis didn't have any other response for Martin. Most of the school didn't know what had happened; they had been told that he would be gone for the remainder of the year due to a sudden family emergency. Only Louis, Martin, Mr. Hundert, and a few others knew the truth; that he had tried to kill himself. He had been made to go to therapy, and had received all sorts of other help before he was allowed to return to St. Benedicts.
"He never came, did he? Not even the first night." Martin looked a Louis. Louis knew who he was talking about.
"No, he didn't."
"Not even while I was in a comatose state." Martin stated the phrase as a question to which he already knew the answer.
"No, I'm sorry."
"Do you know why?" Martin asked.
"No."
"He was too disappointed in me. For failing. If I had succeeded, he would have cared, if I hadn't tried it at all, everything would have stayed the same, but I tried and failed, that's the world that I was trying to escape, it just went around full circle." Martin sighed.
"Martin, you're not thinking of…" Louis trailed off this time. "Are you?"
"No, I'm not, never again." Martin shook his head. "If I failed again, he would just be even more disappointed in me."
"Just pull through, soon enough you'll be able to go to college, you won't have to deal with him, even in the summer." Louis tried to comfort his friend.
"That's not what I want. I want to have a father, I just don't want him to hate me, I don't want him to look down on me as a failure, I tried. It wasn't good enough. What else was I supposed to do?"
"Nothing, I don't know." Louis shrugged.
"Exactly," Martin stated, pointedly.
"Is that why you took the pills?" Louis couldn't contain the curiosity that was rapidly consuming him.
"Yes." Martin allowed the word to slip from his mouth before he gave it any thought.
"So it was the pressure of your father thinking that you were a failure?"
"Yes." Martin stood and abruptly left, just as Deepak was approaching their table.
"Is he ok?" Deepak gestured towards Martin.
"Yeah, he will be. Just, you know, upset about his grandmother." Louis had to keep up the appearance of the lie, Martin's grandmother had died.
"Still? It's been a year. My grandmother died and I wasn't like that."
"I know, they were very close, it's just getting to him, I would leave him alone about it," Louis suggested.
Martin went to his room, he dug through his school trunk and from near the bottom, he drew a packet of envelopes. He pulled off the string that tied them together, and removed the letter from each of the three envelopes. In each was a letter written by his father from last year. The first encouraged Martin to live up to expectations, to be Mr. Julius Caesar, to be the smartest in the class, to get the best grades, and to be better then he thought he could be. The second letter detailed the harsh reminders of his fathers' Julius Caesar reign, it contained a strong reminder that he needed to be in the contest, that he needed to win. The third letter screamed in rage at Martin for not making the contest. The capital letters, underlined and bolded that showed his disappointment in his sons 'failure' as he put it, had once filled Martin's heart with depression, now they fueled him. "Sedgewick, I need your lighter." Marting showed up at Sedgewick's door a moment later.
"What for? Like you have cigarettes," Sedgewick scoffed.
"It's not for that, I need to burn something."
"What?" Sedgewick was being annoying, as usual.
"Just some letters." Martin didn't want to tell him the contents of the documents; they were his, and only his. Even Louis didn't know about them.
"Alright." Sedgewick gave in easily after that, meaning he had just been in the interrogation for the thrill of it.
"Thanks," Martin said the lighter flew across the room towards him. He fumbled to catch it, and did, barely. Then he walked to the bathroom, and held all three letters over the sink. Slowly, he burned them one by one. Forgetting his father's disappointment, living his own life, that was what was important, that was what he needed, his own life. He wasn't his father, he never would be.
A/N yes, I understand that this is a pretty strange thing to write. No, I don't think that Martin is suicidal, but he seemed like someone who, under too much pressure, might cave. Also, I will definitely admit, though most of you probably can tell, that I know little to nothing about drug overdoses, so I hope I didn't butcher it too much. Thanks for reading!